Busto

With the blinds at 800/1600/200, 7800 players already eliminated and 100 to go before cashing, I picked up pocket Queens in the small blind against an early-position raise to 3500 by the table chip leader, the most active player at the table. I thought about how best to play them and decided to bet 10,000 of my 40,000 chips. He immediately moved in. I got a strong read that he had Ace-King and, after due consideration, I called. He turned over Ace-King and the Ace on the river sent me packing.

It is ludicrous to hold a tournament where you can bust out in the eighth day and go home empty handed. In fact, it's ludicrous to support a tournament where the sponsoring corporation takes $5.6 million out of the prize pool despite making tens of millions on rights and advertising. The online sites should get together and cut Harrah's out of the picture entirely. All they own is the trademark "World Series of Poker" and as far as I can tell they add very little value to the tournaments. Call it something else, have actual intelligent players design the structures and formats, and add money to the prize pool rather than subtract.

Back home to Seattle then maybe I'll go somewhere where online poker isn't a felony.